


What if We Remember

by igrab



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Flashback, Modern Era, Rebirth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-17
Updated: 2014-01-17
Packaged: 2018-01-09 01:14:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1139690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/igrab/pseuds/igrab
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>There are no words to describe this feeling, somewhere between déjà-vu and an inexplicable rightness.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	What if We Remember

**Author's Note:**

> "what happens if the distance kills us?"  
> "well, at least we’ll die together"  
> "what if we forget who  
> we are?”  
> "but what if we remember?"
> 
> \--[amandaspoetry](http://amandaspoetry.tumblr.com/post/73577615833/lets-steal-a-house-and-move-it-by-the-sea-run)

She remembers things in the way she remembers an old dream - now and again, when something jogs the memory.

She loves the woods, but they make her uneasy, so she sticks to the big cities, to the skyscrapers. Her love for the stars is unapologetic and she feels the most herself like this, on her back, looking up.

Every now and then she'll hear something or smell something and it's as if she's in a different world - not a better or a worse one, just different. She remembers snatches of fey music. The feel of smooth wood beneath her hands. She remembers rocks and soft fabrics; she remembers strong wine, the taste of ripe berries. She has an irrational distaste for spiders.

She meets him first at a protest, all loud noises and angry people. He steps on her toes and she, in turn, elbows him in the chest - he's much too small, and that's what triggers the memory for her. 

_A small man with small smiles and everyone has told her that nothing good comes in small packages, but all she can see is hope, a powerful thing in such dark times._

She is about to move on with her life with a voice calls out, over the crowd. "Kee!"

He has a brother, a blond brother. That rings another bell, and suddenly she's turning away from her fellow protesters, following these two boys - no, men, they're a bit on the short side but they certainly aren't boys. "Excuse me," she says, a sudden desperation gripping her - she doesn't know why but she needs to him to see her, to recognize her existence in this vast world. He turns and when he sees her, some spark of recognition lights in his chocolate-dark eyes.

"Hey," he says, so easy, with a lopsided grin that makes her breath run short. "What's up?"

"I," but she doesn't have the words for what she wants to say. _I know you,_ a part of her is whispering relentlessly, _we're meant to remember, please tell me you remember._

"I think I elbowed you back there, I just - wanted to know if you were all right." It's all she can say. There are no words to describe this feeling, somewhere between déjà-vu and an inexplicable rightness.

His eyes crinkle at the corner when he smiles, no, _beams_ , like a ray of sunshine lancing through the clouds. "I'll forgive you if you come have a drink with me," he asks with a hopeful little note to it, as if he's already certain she'll turn him down. As if he knows she's out of his league and this, too, is familiar.

The smile on her face is coy. _Coy_. She has never been coy with anyone, not like this. "I think I'd like that," she murmurs, and the look on his face moves from hopeful to astonished to absolutely delighted.

"Really?! I mean," and he tries to cover up the squeak by clearing his throat but she doesn't mind, she finds his honesty quite charming. She can't remember the last time she wanted to do this, to flirt, to meet someone like normal people do. She has always felt as if she were waiting, as if the memories that touch her sometimes are part of a bigger picture that she can only pretend to understand. She has wondered, on more than one occasion, if she is simply playing a role: _Tauriel, playing Tauriel. Enter, stage right._

But when he takes her hand in the middle of the crowded street, she feels his calluses and thinks for the first time that she doesn't care what the script says, she isn't waiting any longer. She wants this. She wants to chase this feeling of being smiled at, of all the stars in his eyes when he looks at her. She wants to know what it feels like to fall in love.

"Have we met before?" he asks, as they order drinks with their hips touching and her red hair falling all the way down her back. He likes a dark, stout draft; she isn't surprised.

"I doubt it," she murmurs. It's just a feeling, just an instinct better left untapped. She doesn't need memories to want this, to want something for her own.

•

"You could've gone on to the Undying Lands," Kili rasped, his head against her shoulder.

Tauriel shrugged, one hand drifting up to cup her little dwarf man's scratchy cheek. She would never know what it felt like to wake up every morning with beard burn, and it made her heart ache, that of all the wisdom and longevity of the elves, she would be so unlucky, to live six hundred years and have them wasted. "No," she said, and she meant it. There were those who refused to fight this battle, who were already on their way to Lothlórien. She would have never been one of them. "I would never turn my face away from those in need, least of all you."

He laughed and it was a hollow sound, a wet sound. He pushed a little closer to her, tipped his head up so he could close his eyes and press his nose to the porcelain line of her jaw. "You shouldn't be dying here with me."

Kili had his fingers laced in those of the corpse of his brother, blood beginning to dry them together, fused in that which they already shared. Fili was gone, and Kili would not last, and she had known, hadn't she, that her fate would be here, on this field. People as beautiful as Kili did not live for long.

"Tauriel, I..." and he coughed, voice wrecked, and her heart gave a shuddering leap. Even here, now, he could still tear her apart just that little bit more.

"Save it," she whispered. "Save it for Valinor." Her eyes were beginning to feel heavy, her vision beginning to fog. "I'll find you there."

"Promise?" His voice was warm and soft on the pointed tip of her ear.

"I promise."


End file.
